Friday Fun Words

Yvie here, for your usual Verification Word tomfoolery.

The weather has been so nice here that we're back to taking walks in the morning. Also we're spending a lot of time in the yard, running around and barking at other dogs and people.

Actually, the other day I had a bit of an accident. I was in the yard, barking at some kids when I saw Mommy inside the house. Well I decided it was time for me to go inside and since it was so nice, I raced really fast across the yard.

We have a porch with one step up into the house, and I thought I judged the jump correctly, but alas, I was wrong.

My feet got caught on the step and my face smashed into the house.

Mommy seemed a little shocked. But I was fine. I mean, my face is already pretty flat.



Nothing was wounded but my pride. And I'm sure the house has a bruise as well.

But that's what it gets, tripping me up like that.

Onto the words!

Splurf - what happens when you smash a smurf

Peppoglu - what they use to keep the pepperoni on the pizza



Mogin - what you say when you want an increase of liquor

Fircons - criminal trees

Hemet - when a male comes across a new person

Conboo - criminal ghosts

And that's all for this week, ape-friends. Have a nice weekend!

In Which I Revise Some More

So revisions for Foxfire seem to be going steady. Not that I've done much "revising" per se (not counting the few scenes I've added). But the preparing for the revisions is going steady.

I've come up with a better conflict and purpose for the antagonist, which was literally non-existent in the first draft (me and my passive characters). That will really make things tighten up nicely, I believe.

Here's a pic of what I'm doing right now.



I've taken each scene and posted them on one of my notebook pages. I title the page with the chapter and scene # (Chp 4.1 etc) and then I read through the scene. Anything I come across that needs fixing, I write it on the page next to the scene post it. My thoughts are that I can then highlight each piece of editing I've completed for each scene as I go.

Also this way I can do editing scene by scene instead of trying to do it ONE WHOLE NOVEL AT A TIME... no thanks. Not for me.

All the scenes have a repeating list of revision bits which include (but are not limited to) things such as: Line Edits, First and last scene sentence revision, POV check, SDT check, Conflict, Action etc.

I'm really really interested in how everyone else goes about editing and revising whole novels. Which is, of course, why I keep posting about my own process. Because I figure if I'm curious, surely others are as well.

Anyone else written blog posts regarding their specific revision processes?

In Which I Have A New Idea

The other night I had a dream. Now I know I've posted on how I have troubles writing full stories based off my dreams, but this time, the story is almost complete.

To be fair I think much of the story came up while I was sort-of half awake and trying to fall back asleep. But that doesn't matter!


This story seems like it would make a good YA trilogy. I've never overly considered doing something YA before, until now that is.


I'm actually quite excited about these stories (the dream covered books 1 and 2. But I'm a trilogy person so there would have to be a third one) and may start the first one for NaNo 2010.


What's it about? That's a closely guarded secret. The only thing I will tell you is that it involves a war.


Oh, and Sea Serpents.

Anyone else have new story ideas?

In Which I Go Shopping For Technology

So I finally got my tax money which is awesome. Since Twin and I bought our house, the tax breaks have been much better.

This year I decided that I should buy a new laptop. I haven't had a brand new computer in over 10 years and my current laptop was refurbished when I bought it around 7-8 years ago.

Old laptop perks:





Stylish NaNoWriMo sticker
Familiarity = ease of use-ability
Keyboard molded to my fingers = less typos
All my music stored


New Laptop perks:





Speakers that work
Mouse that works
Shiny and new
Full keyboard so I can use the number pad
Wide screen monitor so I can easily update blogger layout
HDMI output so we can hook it up to the TV and watch the laptop stuff on our awesome TV
Nice video card = Sims and other PC game compatibility


Sunday evening we started up Sims and made a new family. It was fun because while one of us played, the rest could watch on the TV.

Ah Sims. Will we ever break free from your clutches?




All signs point to No...

In Which I Search For Pictures

I did something last week that I've never done before. No it wasn't skydiving.
I looked up people pics to try and find ones that look like my characters!

I know a lot of people do this, but it just never occurred to me as something to do. I know what my characters look like in my head.

But then on one of the blogs I frequent (can't remember which one) she had posted a pic of her main character and I realized hey, I could do that too!

So I spent hours pouring over pics of teens and adults trying to find the closest match to my characters.

It was so much fun!

If you haven't done it before now, I would recommend it. I used a model/actor website and had a lot of luck.

And here we go!

This is my MC Fox. His hair is actually redder and longer and he should look a bit younger but otherwise this is a pretty good match

This what my other MC Quill looks like, she would just have much shorter hair

This is Lisi, Fox's mother

Both Fox and Quill have two love interests (their characters mirror each other a bit)
For Quill we have:

Otter

and

Bear

And for Fox there is:

Memma

and

Amira

The last two human characters are:

Zirah

Jona

Anyone else ever pick pictures for their characters?

Friday Fun Words

Yvie here. For any of our new followers, I've been charged with writing the Friday posts on Mommy's blog. So I make up definitions for blogger word verification words.

I go where I want!

This week Anne went away for some stoopid job thing, which means I didn't get any kisses or cuddling from her for 3 whole days! Yes, Mommy gave me tons to make up, but still. I require multi human love.

So to teach Anne a lesson, I ate her cupcake.

That will teach her to leave a chair pushed back so I can sneak onto the dining room table.

Oh, and Anne? It was delicious.

Onto the words!

Emoram - an angst ridden, male sheep



Teepie - this is a convoluted word which can mean eating a delicious baked desert in a house made of hide. Other definitions may include a baked dessert made from a warm herbal beverage.

Shesever - when a woman makes a cut

Sturap - when a man called Stuart makes rhythmic music

Eelopa - when a pair of water snakes swim off and get married without their parent's permission

Polludan - when Nate gets tired of doing all the plant reproductive work so he lets his brother Dan take over for awhile

And that's it for this week, ape-friends! I'll be back next week with more words.

In Which I Reveal Further Prizes

I want to thank everyone who took the time out of their schedules to participate in my 100 Followers Writing Contests. I hope everyone had as much fun as I did.

I received a total of 11 stories (12 if you count a fake-ish one Twin submitted (more on that later)) which was a great number!

Out of the 6 prompts, the favorites seemed to be the diary after the storm and smelling fear. For those who are curious, I most likely would have attempted the inventor one and written a steampunk short. Or perhaps the "It keeps getting worse" prompt.

Here are the stats (since Christi used all of the prompts, I'm not counting her in the numbers):

• After 3 weeks, a lost dog returns home to its master carrying an unidentifiable bone in its mouth
  I received 1 entry for this prompt
  
  


• After waking from a coma, a woman discovers she can smell fear
  I received 3 entries with this prompt
  
  


• When a crackpot inventor is killed by one of his contraptions his brother - also an inventor - finds himself compelled to finish the work
  2 entries used this prompt
  
  


• A man discovers a large sum of money in his wallet and can't remember where it came from
  1 entry for this prompt
  
  


• Use the quote "I pray every day that it will stop, but it keeps getting worse."
  no one used this prompt, except Twin with her fake-ish entry
  
  


• After a violent thunderstorm a man discovers a rain-soaked diary among the debris in his yard
  3 entries used this prompt
  

The majority of the entries had exactly 749 words. It was kind of creepy that way.

As I stated above, Twin snuck in her own entry. It had pictures and was about her love of Ninjas.


It contained some beautiful writing, such as this chunk: "I pray every day that it'll stop but it just keeps getting worse. My desire to be a ninja, that is. I mean, check this shit out:"
Followed by these pictures:





Good times, but she will not be winning a prize.

However the rest of the entrants will!

Everyone who participated will receive a copy of Hooked! Which may possibly be the best book on writing I've read in years.

Onto the remaining entries!


Piedmont Writer wrote a piece called The Tornado where a man finds his wife's diary after a storm. This was a sad and touching piece and I loved the line "Now he could see he never gave her the one thing that could".

Courtney from Southern Princess also used the diary in the storm prompt to write a haunting story about immortality and desire. It had a fantastic hook in it's opening line: "Dillon ignores his immortality".

Achinghope was the final entry in the diary in the storm prompt and her story Debris revolved around the ghosts our actions leave behind. It contained this gem of description: "The cloth was wet and faded blue, felt like moldy bread under his fingertips."

Janel's story Miracle Pill was one of the few that used the contraption that killed his brother prompt. A story about a miracle diet pill, one of my favorite lines was "Their mother loved to show strangers 40-year old pictures of her chubby-cheeked cherubs."

Joan Crawford (who doesn't even consider herself a real writer, btw) wrote a fantastic piece about a woman who becomes addicted to smelling the fear of others. Fav line: "She'd gotten herself in trouble, loved a man with ash for a heart". Loved. This. Piece. (also Joan, if you don't want the writing book, I'd be happy to send you an amazon gift card instead. Just let me know)

Susan Fields also used the prompt of smelling fear to tell a story about familial love. Oh, and murder. I loved this description: "All had the sickly sweet smell of decaying fruit".


Please everyone email me your addresses so I can send you your prize.


I want to stress again that for many of these entries it was a very, very, very close call and that everyone did a MARVELOUS job.



Thanks everyone who participated and Yvie will be in tomorrow for our usual Friday Fun Words.